Life At Korthuis Manor

Life At Korthuis Manor
Captain Randy and his First Mate!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

When life gives you green tomatoes........................



.............you make Green Tomato Bread! Yep - I know - sounds odd - almost disgusting!  My BFF Marla brought it over a couple weeks ago and I turned my nose up and said - no thanks!  Finally, sweet Marla convinced me to try it and I ended up eating 3 slices. 

Since our poor tomato plants have not seen near enough sunshine this summer (likewise for myself!), we happen to have a LOT of green tomatoes.  Yes, we've had some wonderful red ones too, sweet and juicy - but the greens have won out!

GREEN TOMATO BREAD
 3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. finely chopped green tomatoes
1 1/2 c. chopped pecans
In a large mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder and set aside.  In another bowl combine eggs, oil, vanilla, green tomatoes and pecans.  Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture.  Stir just until moistened.  Batter will be thick, and lumps will remain.  Pour batter into 2 greased 8x4 loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. 
It's fabulous with a caramel macchiato!  

This is one of those recipes that you're better off not knowing the name before you try it.  But, go ahead, you're brave, and besides - have I ever led you astray!!  Thanks Marla - you were right - it's AWESOME!! :-)

Monday, September 27, 2010

We're all crabby!

After a good day of crabbin', the best thing to do is to sit right down with great friends and get crackin'!
 First the men clean up and boil the crab.  Of course my husband has built a handy processing station.................only my husband!! :-)


 After a while of fun, laughter, and flicking crab juice on each other - voila' -a bowl full of crab meat!  Randy then pulls out his vacuum sealer, and we bag it up and freeze it.  Now it's all ready to be pulled out and turned into crab cakes, etc.!  YUM!
Crab season is over, but we have plenty to last a while!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Blueberry Cream Muffins

I'm always looking for a new way to use blueberries and I ran across this recipe and decided to give it a try.  I mean after all, it has cream cheese in it - how could it not be good?!?!
 
BLUEBERRY CREAM MUFFINS
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 6 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
  • 2 cups fresh blueberries or frozen blueberries*
  • FILLING:
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • Dash salt
  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat the eggs, milk and butter; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the blueberries. Spoon about 2 round tablespoonfuls into greased muffin cups.
  2. In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt; place about 1 tablespoon in the center of each muffin cup (do not spread). Top with remaining batter. Bake at 375 degrees F for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in muffin comes out clean. cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. 
  3.  
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  5. I can't get rid of these number bullets now, so bear with me!
  6. They were wonderful!  I loved them heated up the next day.  They were great to share with friends and I've made them twice now!  Definitely a keeper!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Grilled Cheese, BLT, Burger please

Yes, you read right!    This is the dinner our friends decided that Randy needed for his birthday dinner.

GRILLED CHEESE - BLT - BURGER
You start by making grilled cheese sandwiches - yes, 4 pieces of bread per burger, 2 grilled cheese sandwiches per burger - it's the bun replacement!  You grill the sandwiches and then you press down to squish them a bit.
Then you take bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and top them off with a fabulous burger that's made of hamburger and sausage.

We had spent the beginning of the evening snacking on chips and pico de gallo fresh from the garden.............................

...............so needless to say I was already feeling a bit full and the sound of that burger just sounded like more than I could handle.  But I had to try it and boy was I glad I did!  FABULOUSITY.......EXTROIDINAIRE...........I didn't finish my whole half, but I enjoyed every bite I took!  The best part - if you got a bite without burger - the "bun" was still awesome!

Dan and Marla were the chefs in charge and they also made their homemade onion rings - OH MY GOODNESS!!!

The evening was spent outside on the back porch.................flowers from farmer Randy's garden!

Kathi made her AWESOME caramel apple pie (Alas no pics), and a good time was had by all!!

By the way - we ate way too late and too much and we were all hurtin' - that's not so fun at our old age anymore!!  :-)

YOU MUST TRY THESE BURGERS - it makes men smile big!!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Happy Birthday Randy

Today is my husbands birthday.  If I had the money, I would take him away on a 2 week cruise to relax and refresh........................

...............since I don't have the money, we will just take our son down to Harborview for a recheck and go out for lunch.  Today they will be looking at Nathan's knee to decide if he needs to have another manipulation surgery.  Manipulation can only be done within 2 months of the surgery and we are at one month, so I will let you know what they decide.

Back to Randy - the hardest working man you've ever met.....handsome (boy howdy!!),honest, analytical, faithful, loyal, generous, kind............these are just a few of the words that describe the man that God blessed me with. 

He likes to laugh.................................
He is not too manly to play "Pretty Pretty Princess" with our little friend Hailey....
He is happiest on his boat, an island, a mountain, fishing.........................
He is so good with children..............and they love him.  This is him with above mentioned Hailey - we love her!
 
Does this man clean up nice or what?!?!
I am so blessed .................Happy Birthday Randy....................I love you! In our year of ups and down, you are the only thing that has remained constant and stable (heaven knows it isn't me!!).
By the way - You're not 46 my dear!!! Try again!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Dinnner from the earth......

One Saturday morning Randy went fishing a couple weeks ago (actually he goes ALL the time - this is his new midlife crisis :-), and came home with some Sockeye Salmon.

So, that evening Dan and Marla came for dinner and we had salmon and goods from the garden....................................
Cream Red Potatoes and Peas (My mom made this when I was growing up - YUM)
I absolutely LOVE beets - Randy doesn't at ALL
A table completed with flowers from the garden
It was a beautiful evening for sitting on the back porch.  We sat and enjoyed the food, the company and the evening.  I even tried 3 new recipes for the evening. We started with a roasted red pepper artichoke dip - it was very good!  Then I had made a cheddar bread cooked in a casserole - definitely a keeper!  For dessert I made a lemon pudding cake - awesome!  All 3 recipes were from one of my favorite blogs - Mennonite Girls Can Cook.  It's listed on my sidebar so check it out!! I love their recipes and haven't had a bad one yet!!  I LOVE trying new recipes, and having friends over to try them out!!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

She is a saint!!

Ok - Obviously, if you read my last post you know I was pulling my hair out!!  Honestly - can't blogger just leave well enough alone?!?!

Tanya Silves came to my rescue.  With a couple phone calls and her brain power - she got it fixed!  There are still some frustrating issues - but it is fixed!!

THANK YOU TANYA!!  Now if I could just retain all the lessons you've given me on digital scrapbooking!  I think we need another one on one tutorial - honestly, I can learn!!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Blogging help needed ............argh!!

OK Blogger - I give - cry uncle - throw in the towel, raise a white flag - all those things.

Somehow - I've lost all my gadgets ie:
music
statcounter
blogs I follow
my background

And now, as I'm typing, I can't even use the enter key to get to the next line, I have to arrow down.

Can anyone help!!!!  All I did was change my background, and I was in trying to change my fonts and colors and I lost everything!!

Please call me if you can help!  961-9450

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Kind of giddy

Sunday afternoon we headed out to take Brandon back to Whitworth(not without getting a family snapshot).
The momentum has been building and by Saturday, Brandon was almost giddy. Now for those of you who know Brandon, this is not a word that is associated with him at all!! :-)

We drove over Sunday, spent the night in a hotel and left the hotel Monday morning by 8:30am! He was READY to get settled in!We took care of some business with the financial aid office, walked over to see sweet Janna Silves (a precious girl from our church that is a RA there), had lunch and we could tell Brandon was MORE than ready for us to let him get about his business. His roommates had lunch with us and we really enjoyed them - he is in a triple room - it is huge! This is Brandon with Kevin, and Nick.Of course the dutiful picture with the parents.............................
I am sad to say goodbye, but he was so excited to be there and there were no unknowns this time. He knows his roommates and he knows the campus and sad to say, it really was like coming home for him. It's been a hard summer here at our house and Brandon kind of got lost in the shuffle. I am sad for all the conversations I didn't have with him and feel like I hardly saw him this summer. Brandon is so easy going and never makes a fuss, so unfortunately he just went about his business this summer, working hard and now he's gone and it seems like he was hardly here.

Love you bud - have an awesome year! I know you'll do fantastic! That's just who you are!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

rah rah sis boom bah.................

Whatever that means?!?!?! But, what I'm talking about is Emily's first official cheer. Friday night was LC's first game at Civic Stadium against Sehome High School!

To begin the night the girls came here to eat dinner..................
and get ready...............................................(did I mention that our room was full of hairspray, sparkles, glitter, bobby pins, etc?)The girls headed out and then we cleaned up and headed in to the game.

This was our view most of the time..................................but once in a while we saw this...............................My camera is cheap and is absolutely horrible for pictures zoomed in from far away, so of course I had to go down and get one from closer up!
At half time she came up and said "hi" and was even willing to have her picture taken with her ol' ma and pa!she even wanted her picture taken with her cousins Kolton and Levi!
The weather was beautiful, but boy did it get cool once the sun went down! That ol' wind was blowin and we were glad we had brought a blanket. I'll get this thing down to a science.............
1.blanket
2.thermos of coffee
3. munchies
4. gloves, and other warm gear are sure to be added too!

Oh ya, by the way, our football team won the game 10-0! I guess football is the reason we went :-)!!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Nathan update

Tuesday (in the POURING rain) Nathan and I headed back down to Harborview for a checkup. It's so cool cuz' all I have to do is tell the van where we're going and it just heads there on auto drive (wouldn't that be nice?!?!)

We met with Dr. Rout and Dr. Miller (we just love her) and they are very satisfied with the progress and they removed his staples......................ALL 76 OF THEM!!!!

Nathan is walking with a cane, because his left leg is so weak after having that muscle cut and all the muscles pulverized. He sits up straight now and his knee is bending at about 100 degrees (Which is better than the 45 degrees before surgery).

So far, the Lord has protected him from any infections - this is huge!! He is back in physical therapy and is going 5 days a week!

We ask you continue to pray for protection from infection (the Dr. says this could still happen) and for a COMPLETE recovery!!

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

She's back.....................in school!

Monday was Emily's first day of school as a Sophomore!................yes I need a closeup thank you! (It's what moms do!)It was a beautiful day. I dropped her off at school and then took some flowers from my garden to a friend and then headed back to school for convocation. I love this about Lynden Christian! They start the first day with the whole school gathered and friends and family join them and they sing worship songs and dedicate the school year to God.

Tomorrow night Em cheers at her first game..........can't wait!